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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25998550">I Need a Hero (No Mask, No Cape, No Service)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/pseuds/a_gay_poster'>a_gay_poster</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Action &amp; Romance, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Canon-Typical Violence, Humor, Identity Porn, M/M, Secret Identities</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 22:26:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>17,504</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25998550</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/pseuds/a_gay_poster</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lotus is an oddity among heroes: one of the few registered superheroes with no superpowers to speak of. He loves his job, until a mysterious team of vigilantes led by a man named Sirocco start interfering with his acts of derring-do. His teammates think there must be something more to their rivalry, but is there?</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Rock Lee is falling head-over-heels for his new neighbor, Gaara. His neighbor is quiet, shy, and drop-dead gorgeous. But there seems to be something oddly familiar about him ...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Gaara/Rock Lee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>133</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletCloack/gifts">ScarletCloack</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Happy birthday Scarlet! Thank you for introducing me to the Identity Porn trope, which is something I never knew I needed in my life! I hope your birthday was full of fish, plants, and fancy ink pens! I know you're a DC gal, but I've only ever followed Marvel comics, so this story is probably a bit more Marvel-esque than DC. I tried to make up for it with a couple little nods to DC canon. </p>
<p>Shout-out to the GaaLee Discord server for help with the hero names. I hope everyone's superhero identities are obvious in the text, but there's a glossary in the end notes with everyone's names in case it's difficult to keep track. </p>
<p><b>Warnings:</b> This is a superhero story, so there's general light violence (nothing that exceeds canon), injuries, natural disasters (earthquake, fire), and mostly petty crime. Police and their interactions with heroes are mentioned but do not appear in the actual story, though some hero work imitates policing. The ethical challenges inherent in crime fighting are mentioned but not explored in much depth. A background character has a severe mental health episode that includes delusions and hallucinations. Lee has uncritically warm and fuzzy feelings about the surveillance state.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The fire crackles, sparks leaping from the roof of the apartment building and painting firework shapes against the deep blue of the night sky. Over the roar of the flames, Lee can hear the load-bearing beams creaking, threatening to give way.</p><p>It’s exactly the type of heroism Team Guy is least suited for.</p><p>Team Guy—named for their illustrious, though now, after a mysterious and tragic on-the-job accident, unfortunately retired mentor and former team leader, Mighty Guy—are combat specialists, trained in taking down enemies with just their wits and fists and occasionally pretty snazzy tech. Their team of three is made up of The Gentle Fist, master of the art of <i>baguazhang</i> and able to bring down foes with just a few taps of his pointed hands; Deadeye, weapons mistress extraordinaire, just as quick with a throwing knife as with a bow and arrow; and Lee, The Lotus, who has trained his body to a peak of physical perfection that allows him to subdue his enemies before most of them are even aware he’s moved to strike. </p><p>Most importantly, none of them have superpowers. </p><p>“I’m going in!” Lee shouts. Under the tight leather of his hood, sweat is dripping down the back of his neck. The air is scorching; everything smells like ash. </p><p>Deadeye coughs, bringing one heavily armored arm up over her face. Her pink and red suit is covered in pouches and weapons’ belts—a veritable walking human armory—but nothing in her arsenal is equipped to deal with this.</p><p>“It’s too dangerous!” she cries, before her voice is lost to another hacking cough, smoke thick in the air. “Don’t be stupid!”</p><p>“The firefighters will be here soon,” The Gentle Fist says placidly, always the most level-headed among them. His white costume is growing gray from the soot, updrafts gusting his cloak and long hair this way and that. He checks the communication watch on his wrist. “HQ says t-minus two minutes until backup arrives.”</p><p>The apartment building is in a rough corner of town, an area with high unemployment and more izakaya and liquor stores than schools. The building was in disrepair before the fire ravaged it, and the nearest fire station is almost five miles away. It’s smack-dab in the center of Team Guy’s territory, which is the only reason they arrived on the scene as fast as they did. </p><p>“That’s too long!” Lee snaps. “The landlady said there were three apartments that weren’t able to evacuate! By the time they get here—” </p><p>The building gives another warning groan. Something inside crashes. The time for talking is over; the time for action is now. </p><p>Lee charges forward.</p><p>“Lotus—!” Deadeye shouts at his back, but he pretends not to hear her. </p><p>There’s a fire escape around the side of the building, black wrought-iron warping and hazy in the heat. It’s Lee’s best chance of getting to the upper floors; opening the front door at this point would just feed the fire more oxygen, spiking the flames higher. The handle of the staircase is hot to the touch as he flips over and hurtles himself up onto the second platform. The leather on his palm blisters. He ignores it. </p><p>He takes the stairs three at a time, leaping up them so quickly he feels as if he’s hardly touching the steps.</p><p>Then—he realizes with a belated lurch in his stomach—he isn’t touching the fire escape at all. </p><p>Something is tight around his stomach, holding him high in the air. </p><p>He thrashes, twisting futilely. </p><p>At the edge of the apartment building’s courtyard, behind the ash-caked civilians clinging to each other, watching their lives go up in flames, are three dark figures. </p><p><i>Villains!</i> Lee thinks, his stomach sinking like a stone. They must have been the ones who set the blaze, and now they’re watching the fruits of their vile labors!</p><p>Smoke clouds Lee’s eyes, but the figures look menacing, dressed in all black, their faces covered, the heavy fabric of their cloaks and scarves whipping in the wind picked up by the fire. </p><p>A glimmering rope travels up from the smallest of the three’s outstretched hand, caught around Lee’s waist. He grabs at it, trying to free himself, but it falls away from his grip in grainy patches only to reform just as quickly.</p><p>It’s not rope at all, he realizes. It’s <i>sand</i>. </p><p>With a wide sweep of one arm, the figure sends Lee sailing gently through the air and sets him down next to his bewildered teammates.</p><p>“Deadeye, Gentle Fist!” Lee cries, reeling on his opponents and raring to go. “Back me up!”</p><p>“Lotus, wait.” A jab to the back of his shoulder makes his curled fist fall limp. </p><p>As he watches, the tallest of the figures—a woman, it is now clear, with a stately figure and impeccable posture, a frilled collar on the back of her robes that looks like a massive folding fan decorated with purple and red scrollwork—raises her hands and brings them down towards the ground again. The wind howls loud, then goes nearly silent. The fire quietens with her motions, as if she’s pushing it into the earth, until it’s just a simmer of embers. </p><p>The widest of the three throws his arms out commandingly, and from his voluminous sleeves shoot out no fewer than a dozen grappling hooks, like the strings of a demented marionette. Unlike the other two in his party, he wears a mask instead of a veil or scarf, a heavy-looking, moulded thing, scowling like a demon’s face with thick lines of purple demarcating the features. The hooks fly high over the gathered crowd and latch on the edges of the building’s edifice. Lee can feel the envy rolling off Deadeye in waves as the man tightens the hooks’ cords with a jerk, bringing the front of the building crumbling down. </p><p>“They’re destroying it!” Lee growls.</p><p>“No,” Gentle Fist says softly. “It was already destroyed.”</p><p>With the apartments’ interiors now exposed, the smallest figure stretches out his hands. At first, Lee thought he was another woman, just as heavily draped in black as the tall woman with the fire-suppressant powers. But as he moves, Lee realizes he’s just a very small, very slight man, wearing not a veil, but a scarf wrapped over his nose and mouth, a hood over the upper part of his face so that only his eyes are visible. Hopefully he’s not a teenager, Lee thinks. There was a serious problem with teenage heroes a few years back, Lee knows all too well, getting in over their heads and needing to be rescued. </p><p>Thick ropes of sand come from the man’s tight black sleeves, his hands completely obscured by seething grains. The sand ripples up the building like tentacles. Then, with very careful motions, he lifts all the strands of sand into the air. Grasped in a few of the tendrils, just as Lee was, are people. They’re little more than shadows against the night sky, some moving and some concerningly limp. There are so many of them—a baby’s cradle, an old man and his walker, a teenage girl in a motorized wheelchair—more than Lee could ever have hoped to carry at once. He places them ever-so-gently on the ground near the assembled crowd, to the relieved cries and gasps of the onlookers. Someone starts sobbing loudly. </p><p>“Is that … our back up?” Deadeye whispers. </p><p>Gentle Fist shakes his head. “It’s too soon for them to be.” Just as he speaks, a fire truck’s sirens blare in the distance. A few blocks over, flashing red and white lights can be seen. </p><p>“I’ve never heard of a team with powers like <i>that</i>,” Lee replies.</p><p>There’s a massive creaking noise, then the building collapses in onto itself with an ear-splitting crash. Flecks of ash and hot embers spiral into the night air. </p><p>There’s a screech of brakes as the fire truck skids into the parking lot.</p><p>“Sirocco,” the tall woman snaps, turning to her lithe companion. “The authorities—” </p><p>Sirocco motions soundlessly. Despite his size, from his commanding presence and the deference shown by his teammates, it’s clear he’s their leader. </p><p>The firefighters pour out of the doors of their truck, unspooling the massive hose and hurrying to spray down the pile of smoldering wood that was once an apartment building.</p><p>The woman straightens and removes her high collar from her costume. When she shakes it out, it unfolds into a massive paper fan, larger than a person. </p><p>“Aww, c’mon, Rashaba, you promised I wouldn’t have to ride on that thing again tonight!” The man with the grappling hooks has a voice that’s surprisingly high and whiny for his bulk. Nonetheless, he climbs onto the outstretched fan. It holds his weight—and the weight of his teammates who climb on beyond him—without so much as buckling, much to Lee’s surprise.</p><p>“Karagoz,” the woman—Rashaba—barks. “Enough.”</p><p>Sirocco makes a silencing gesture, and Karagoz stops his complaining immediately. </p><p>An ambulance squeals into place behind the fire truck. The head paramedic quickly notices Team Guy standing at the side of the courtyard and rushes over to them for a triage summary. </p><p>Rashaba waves her arm, and with a massive gust of wind that sends a shower of sparks across the courtyard, the fan rises up into the air.</p><p>“How many casualties?” the head paramedic is asking Gentle Fist, as the EMTs corral the civilians and begin assessing the crowd.</p><p>“Well, shit,” drawls Powerwash, arriving on the scene with the rest of Team Taka on the back of one of Assisi’s tigers. “Guess there ain’t much left for me to do.” He turns to Lee. He is, inexplicably and unprofessionally, holding a juicebox. He bites through the straw with jagged teeth before he says, “Y’all did this?” </p><p>Lee isn’t listening to him. He’s watching the sky go dark as the fan blots out the moon. </p><p>Then the shadow gets smaller and smaller, and the trio are gone.</p>
<hr/><p>Lee screeches into his carport and pops the kickstand. His motorcycle—The Green Beast, named for the flashy (Tenten would say ‘eye-searing’) color of her body—rumbles to silence beneath him. He pauses for a moment to slump over the handlebars and just <i>breathe</i>. </p><p>The debriefing from the Nygma Apartment Fire Incident ran most of the night, and by the time it was over, Lee was in no shape to drive. He ended up crashing for a few hours on one of the cots in the breakroom at HQ, awoken only when Team 7's leader, The Scarecrow, stumbled in to put on a pot of coffee, kicking the leg of Lee’s cot accidentally-on-purpose. He was wearing fluffy dog slippers and a bathrobe. Lee is only maybe 80% sure The Scarecrow doesn’t <i>actually</i> live at HQ. </p><p>“Oops,” he said, smiling benignly with the one eye visible under his mask. He opened the cupboard and began making a terrible racket with the mugs. “Sorry, kid. But you should go home and get some real sleep.” </p><p>As Lee stumbled out of the breakroom door, The Scarecrow raised his coffee mug in a <i>cheers</i>. It was flesh-colored, with a handle in the shape of a flexing arm. Lee suspected it actually belonged to Mighty Guy. </p><p>Lee sits upright on his bike's seat and stretches with a groan, the sore muscles in his back protesting their mistreatment by the wafer-thin foam mattress. He flips back the visor of his helmet and scrubs at his sleep-gummy eyes with the sleeve of his leather jacket. He’s still simmering with a diffuse irritation about the mysterious heroes—if they could even be called that—who appeared at the fire. They weren’t Team Guy’s backup—made obvious by the fact that Team Taka arrived on the scene to do too little, too late—and nobody at HQ seemed to have any idea who they were. They weren’t instructed there, they just … showed up. </p><p>Nothing pisses Lee off more than vigilantes. The only thing they’re good for is getting people hurt or killed. </p><p>He tips his head back and lets out a massive groan, just to release the frustration from his body. </p><p>There’s a <i>thump</i>, like something very heavy being dropped. </p><p>Lee straightens up and looks to his left. There’s a moving van on the street outside his neighbor’s house. </p><p>He almost forgot the house next door had been sold, as little time as he seems to spend in his quaint suburban home with its neatly manicured hedgerow nowadays. Things have been terribly busy at the office, and, well … the house is a little large for one person. The purchase of it was mostly aspirational, Lee dreaming of filling the three bedrooms with a family he could call his very own. And it was quite affordable on a hero’s salary. But he doesn’t really need all the space, and being inside it on his own feels rather lonely at times. It’s too much house for <i>just</i> him. </p><p>A red-haired man is climbing out of the back of the moving van, arms laden with a large cardboard box labeled with what is either the worst handwriting Lee has ever seen or a language that’s not actually Japanese at all. </p><p>Lee quickly finger-combs his hair and wipes the scowl off his face, replacing it with his best and brightest smile. First impressions are best impressions, after all! That’s what Mighty Guy always says. </p><p>“Hello there!” Lee calls, climbing off his bike and waving his arm in a wide arc. “Welcome to the neighborhood!” </p><p>The slight man looks up at him, startled. He’s wearing a pair of thin-rimmed glasses, and behind them, he has the most shockingly green eyes. Lee freezes for a moment, entranced. He’s hyper-aware of the blood rushing to his face. </p><p>Then he notices the man’s arms are shaking. </p><p>Lee looks around quickly. There isn’t a mover in sight. </p><p>He jumps the fence between their properties in a single bound and rushes to grab the box from the man’s arms.</p><p>“Easy there!” he says. The other man still hasn’t said a word, but he lets Lee take the box without complaint. The box is incredibly heavy, and it clanks and clatters as Lee hoists it against his chest. “Whoa there, what’s in here, bricks?” </p><p>“Gardening supplies,” the man says. He has a soft, raspy voice. He won’t quite meet Lee’s eye, looking instead to the concrete of his driveway. He seems terribly shy, and his clothing is utterly unsuited to his task. He’s dressed more like a college professor than a man moving house, in neatly-creased khakis belted tight around his narrow waist. He’s even wearing a <i>sweater vest</i> over his t-shirt, bird-boned elbows on display. </p><p>“You’re a gardener?” Lee asks. </p><p>The man shrugs. “Of a sort.” </p><p>“I tried to grow tomatoes last year, but they just stayed hard and green, and then all the leaves fell off and the plant rotted.” Lee throws back his head to laugh. “Maybe you can give me some pointers!” </p><p>“I don’t really … grow vegetables.” Lee’s new neighbor shifts his weight in his canvas boat shoes, clearly uncomfortable. </p><p>“Oh? What do you grow?”</p><p>“Cacti, mostly.” There’s a little sparkle of passion in the man’s eyes, now, and he looks up at Lee with a small smile. “Succulents, desert plants.” </p><p>Lee has to remind his heart to start beating again. </p><p>“I’m Lee, by the way!” He shifts the box onto one hip and holds out one hand. </p><p>“Gaara,” the man replies. His eyes shift from Lee’s arm around the heavy box to his outstretched hand, going a little wide. They shake, and Gaara’s grip is surprisingly firm for someone with such soft hands. </p><p>“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Gaara-san!” Lee beams at him. “Now, would you mind telling me where I can put this for you?”</p><p>Gaara leads Lee through the gate at the side of the house. The back garden is already strewn with half-filled pots of soil, bags of the stuff heaped up against the fence that separates his home from Lee’s. There’s a disorderly row of potted cacti on the small stone patio, all arranged rather crookedly and without much thought to aesthetics. </p><p>“You can set that over there.” Gaara gestures to one of the few remaining spots of empty land. </p><p>Lee deposits his burden with a sigh and stands to brush the dirt off his hands.</p><p>“So, you’re moving in all by yourself?” Lee looks around the crowded back garden. “I hope you’re not planning to lift your furniture on your own. That’s terrible on your back.” </p><p>“My brother and sister are supposed to be helping me,” Gaara says softly, stooping to lift a stack of ceramic pots from the box, his back turned to Lee. “But they got, ah … caught up with something. They’ll be by later.” </p><p>Lee purses his lips. “How ignoble of them, to ignore you in your hour of greatest need! That sort of thing really boils my blood!”</p><p>“It’s really not—”</p><p>“I suppose you need a helping hand to step in and save the day!” Lee puts his hands on his hips and puffs his chest. “Well, Rock Lee is the man for the job!” </p><p>“You really don’t have to,” Gaara mumbles.</p><p>“Nonsense! I insist! Now please show me to the heaviest items!” </p><p>Gaara and Lee make a rather efficient moving team, as it turns out. Gaara is surprisingly strong for his size and build, and he has a knack for body mechanics that impresses even Lee. </p><p>By the time Gaara’s sister and brother arrive, stumbling out of a taxi and looking somewhat careworn, the moving truck is almost empty. </p><p>“Oh,” says Gaara’s sister, blinking at Lee. She’s a tall woman, ropily muscled, her shock of white-blonde hair pulled back in a rough ponytail with a kerchief tied over it. “You had help.” </p><p>“Friend of yours?” drawls Gaara’s heavyset brother. He speaks with something of an accent, but not from anywhere Lee can place. It’s almost as if he learned Japanese by watching old gangster movies, the real schlocky, violent stuff that Lee can’t stomach but that Tenten loves. </p><p>Gaara glances at Lee out of the corner of his eye and gives him a small, subtle smile.</p><p>“Yes,” Gaara says, “I suppose he is.”</p><p>Lee excuses himself to leave the siblings to it—after all, he’s exhausted—but he carries the memory of that tiny, secret smile with him the rest of the day.</p>
<hr/>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It keeps happening. </p><p>Once is an outtake, a silly misstep caught on grainy cellphone footage and posted online for fans to dissect and make memes of. The Lotus’ indignant expression, side-lit by flames, his arms pinned down by sand. </p><p><b>UNHAND ME, GOOD SIR!</b> one says, in bold Impact font. </p><p>Deadeye prints it out and tapes it to the inside of Lee’s locker. </p><p>But it happens again.</p><p>Lee’s responding to a burglar alarm at the Red Hood Natural History Museum, only to find the door blocked off with sand, a lithe figure in black standing in the parking lot with his arms crossed. </p><p>“Please let me handle this!” Lee insists. This happens at least once a month. He didn’t even bother to alert the rest of Team Guy when his comms lit up, because he knows exactly what’s going on. </p><p>Sirocco doesn’t even turn to acknowledge Lee’s presence. He’s either similarly unaccompanied, or his nefarious teammates are skulking about undetected in the shadows. </p><p>“There is a group of local teenagers who like to break in to—” Lee drops his voice to a stage whisper. “—<i>get intoxicated</i> in the Neanderthal diorama. They think it’s funny to take selfies with the topless cavewomen.” </p><p>Sirocco cuts his eyes at Lee at that. His eyes are a flat, dull green, like dusty seaglass, heavily rimmed in kohl. His expression is impenetrable behind the heavy black fabric wrapped over his nose and mouth. </p><p>He stares for a beat, then turns his gaze back to the barricaded museum door.</p><p>“If you would just step aside—” Lee begins.</p><p>Somewhere inside, there’s a terrible crash. </p><p>Before Lee can rush in, the plate glass of the museum’s front window bursts in a shower of shards. </p><p>Three harried-looking teenagers run screaming through it, arms thrown up over their faces. At their heels is a clawed hand made of sand, crawling after them on its amorphous fingers like an extra from a low-budget Addams Family spin-off. </p><p>Two of the teens make a break for it into the night, but a third spots Lee and calls out: “Mr. Lotus, sir! We’re so sorry! It won’t happen aga-<i>aah!</i>” </p><p>The sand snaps at his feet, and he stumbles, almost falling to the pavement before he rights himself and vanishes down an alleyway. </p><p>Lee purses his lips. Sirocco’s methods are unsporting, but they’re clearly <i>effective</i>. </p><p>And then it happens again … </p><p>Lee is dashing down an alleyway, hurdling trash cans, in pursuit of a cat burglar who’s a suspect in a string of residential break-ins. </p><p>Something grabs him around the ankles. It bears him down to the pavement like the training weights Mighty Guy used to have him practice his kicks with. </p><p>There’s a rushing noise, and then the burglar is dangling by her ankle over Lee’s head. She’s shaken roughly, a laptop and a set of expensive-looking kitchen knives falling to the ground. </p><p>Lee turns, and looming in the alley’s entrance like a surly shadow, arms crossed, is Sirocco. </p><p>It’s a … rather impressive display of finesse, really, to do two such fine-grained actions with his power at once and injure neither party. Lee is stuck, sure, but he isn’t <i>hurt</i>, and while the burglar looks rattled, her beanie fallen to the ground and her short hair mussed from being jostled, she also appears to be physically fine. Sirocco controls his sand as if it were an extension of his body. </p><p>Or, Lee thinks, looking at the way the two ropes of sand disappear into the sleeve and up the leg of Sirocco’s costume … maybe it <i>is</i> his body. But that would be completely unheard of! </p><p>Lee tries to take a step. The sand braces him to the ground, firm but gentle, like a friendly hand holding one back from making a rash decision. </p><p>Lee’s face heats. </p><p>“Excuse me!” he shouts. “I almost had her!” </p><p>Behind Sirocco is his bulky, demon-masked compatriot, who tosses a handful of ropes around the burglar and trusses her neatly in mid-air, before hauling her to the sidewalk proper. </p><p>In the distance, Lee hears sirens. There’s a sound like grains of sand falling through an hourglass, and then Sirocco and Karagoz are gone.</p><p>Lee runs to the alley’s entrance to look for them, scowling. </p><p>“Those little—<i>ough!</i>” He clenches his fists furiously.</p><p>“Rough day, huh?” says a voice from the ground. </p><p>Lee looks down, and the bound burglar is staring back at him. </p><p>“Trust me, I get it,” she says, sighing, just as Gentle Fist turns the corner and comes running down the alley from the opposite direction, his face furrowed in confusion. “Hey, would you mind scratching my nose? It itches something terrible.”</p><p>And <i>again</i> ...</p><p>An earthquake rocks the middle of downtown Konoha. Everything is dust and chaos, fire alarms sounding and sprinkler systems hissing from the shattered faces of office buildings. </p><p>Team Guy is tasked with evacuation duties, their expertise no real match for the destructive forces of Mother Nature. No one seems quite sure whether it was a villain attack or a genuine natural phenomenon that tore through the city center, and the confusion is only adding to the civilians’ terror. </p><p>Lee’s escorting a little old lady from the wreckage of her convenience store. She’s much too old to even be working. He wonders whether she has any children or grandchildren, and why they’re so ungrateful as to force their elder to toil over a cash register. Dust clings heavy to his green suit, obscuring the stylized white lotus that makes up the armor plating in the front. The air is difficult to breathe, powdered stone clinging to everything, painting everyone’s nervous faces pale as ghosts’.</p><p>The sign over the store’s front door is just barely hanging on by a luckily-placed piece of rebar jutting from the building’s edifice. Its plastic surface is cracked, its neon blown out. It’s hanging by just a corner, swinging ominously, trailing sparking wires. Even the metal of the rebar itself is bent and twisted, the stone anchoring it halfway shattered. </p><p>Lee keeps one eye on it as he shepherds the elderly clerk through the doorway. </p><p>The earth rumbles, rippling with an aftershock. </p><p>The stone loses its grip on the rebar, and the rebar loses its grip on the sign. </p><p>Both plunge downward, straight towards the old lady’s hunched back. </p><p>A sick, familiar panic surges in Lee’s gut. <i>Not again</i>. </p><p>There’s nothing for him to do but cover the woman with his own body, hands braced over the back of his neck in hopes of sparing his C-spine. </p><p>The awaited impact never comes. </p><p>After a moment, Lee chances a look up. A shimmering dome of sand has crested over himself and the old woman, like a protective shell. As Lee watches, it slithers back to its master, still holding the crumpled remains of the sign. </p><p>Sirocco is standing in the middle of the street with one arm out, the rebar spinning lazily overhead in a fist of sand, like the world’s most twisted baton show. </p><p>He’s making direct eye contact with Lee, his stare challenging. </p><p>Lee throws his arms in the air. </p><p>“This is official! Hero! Business!” he yells at the top of his lungs. His legs are shaky with relief, but all the fear in his belly has twisted itself into white-hot anger. </p><p>“Thank you very much, young man.” The old granny climbs gingerly over a small pile of rubble and pats Sirocco sweetly on one black-clad cheek. His dull green eyes widen minutely. </p><p>He doesn’t say a word—he never does—but he nods to her as she passes, and sand sweeps out from the ankle of his loose black pants to clear a bit of fallen rock from her path as she picks her way up the street.</p><p>“Such a polite young hero …” the old lady mutters as she toddles off.</p><p>“You,” Lee says, pointing at Sirocco, fury in every word, “are <i>not</i> a <i>hero</i>.” </p><p>Sirocco just blinks once, completely impassive. </p><p>He lowers his hand, setting the chunk of rebar down beside Lee with a gentle <i>thud</i>. </p><p>When he passes Lee to leave, their shoulders brush. He smells, Lee realizes with a simmer in his gut that must be rage threatening to boil over, like cloves and cinnamon.</p>
<hr/><p>It’s easy to show up on time for dastardly deeds and natural disasters as a registered hero. Every hero registered with the city is plugged into CommET, the network of empaths and telepaths headed by Psyren—herself the daughter of a famous golden-age psychic hero—who monitor the city for signs of unrest. </p><p>Tenten finds the surveillance network ‘creepy and intrusive’, but Lee is grateful for how they keep the city safe. And besides, he’s been assured more than once, their general scans for hotspots of psychic energy, places where emotions might bubble over into rage or violence, are quite general and anonymized. Lee is certain this must be the case, because more than once Team Guy has accidentally been dispatched to a scene only to discover the Code Orange Potential Imminent Threat was just two (or once, memorably, <i>five</i>) people having very passionate, kinky sex. </p><p>But that just makes Lee all the more bewildered that Sirocco’s team keeps managing to show up at scenes almost as quickly as the pros do. Sometimes even sooner. </p><p>Lee has spent several hours of determined searches attempting to dig up any trace of Sirocco or his crew. They don’t show up in any of the online hero directories, and, while Lee’s never been great at transliteration, he’s tried every katakana variation of their code names he can think of. Even a reverse search by power type turns up fruitless, though he’s sure he’s probed every last angle. For Sirocco, he’s gone through every imaginable superpower: sand control, earth manipulation, silicakinesis. Even, after hitting a roadblock, just the word <b>SAND</b>, typed into the index in all capital letters, slamming the enter key so hard it popped off the keyboard. </p><p>A news article search turned up nothing in Konoha from before the date of the apartment fire, and precious little anywhere else. There’s an article out of Suna with a grainy black-and-white photo of what could be … well, any three shadowy figures, but the attached article is a scanned PDF, and it’s written in Arabic, so Lee has no way of knowing what it says. </p><p>He even tries the Top Secret file paths on a hunch, only to get locked out with an angry beep and a flashing red X. He suspects there will be a meeting with HR in his future to discuss his attempt to access unauthorized material. It wouldn’t be the first time a passion project has gotten him in hot water with management. </p><p>“I looked up his registration!” Lee howls to Deadeye and Gentle Fist over mud-thick black coffee in the breakroom. “There’s nothing!”</p><p>“Who taught you how to use a computer?” Gentle Fist drawls, arching an eyebrow. </p><p>Lee’s face heats; he clenches his fist so hard on the coffee mug that the ceramic threatens to crack. “That is not funny in the least.” </p><p>Deadeye stifles a giggle behind her hand. “Don’t you think this is getting a little obsessive? What is it about this guy that’s got you so heated?”</p><p>Gentle Fist rubs the crease between his eyebrows with his long, aristocratic fingers. “One would almost think you have a crush on him.” </p><p>The handle snaps off Lee’s mug. </p><p>“I do <i>not</i> have a crush!” </p><p>Deadeye gives him a scolding look before wiping away the splashed coffee from the formica with a nearby stack of napkins. </p><p>“I dunno,” she says thoughtfully. “If it’s not unresolved sexual tension, then what is it?”</p><p>“It’s just—! I’m—! He is not even a proper superhero!” Lee cries. </p><p>Deadeye quirks a brow in the exact imitation of the look Gentle Fist gave Lee mere moments ago. “You know … there are a lot of people who’d say <i>we</i> aren’t proper superheroes.” </p><p>Lee drops his face to the surface of the breakroom table.</p><p>“She’s right.” Gentle Fist sits back in his plastic chair, the back complaining as he neatly crosses an ankle over his knee. “They may not be registered, but <i>they</i> have superpowers.”</p><p>“Well, I don’t know about the grappling hook guy,” Deadeye cuts in. “He just seemed to have a bunch of … y’know. Grappling hooks.”</p><p>“He definitely has powers,” Lee says. The formica is pleasantly cool on his sweaty forehead. “He made ropes fly through the air like snakes. They glow a sort of bluish color. I saw them when Sirocco stole my burglar from me.” </p><p>“Didn’t you get credit for that arrest, though?” Deadeye’s voice raises skeptically. </p><p>Lee snaps upright. “Whatever the official tally says, it does not count in my heart! That blasted …” He grits his teeth. “... so-and-so! Took her right from under my nose! She <i>pitied</i> me! Do you know how humiliated I was?” </p><p>“So a criminal saw you get showed up by a vigilante.” Deadeye idly spins a throwing knife around the end of one finger. “Who cares?”</p><p>“<i>I</i> care!” </p><p>“Too much, clearly,” Gentle Fist adds sagely. “You seem awfully fixated on their leader. Aren’t there <i>three</i> vigilantes running amok? I’d think you’d be more concerned with the whole team, if your fascination with him wasn’t more … personal, as you claim.” </p><p>“<i>He’s</i> the one who keeps showing up to my scenes!” Lee shouts. “There’s just something not right about it! If they’re not registered, how do we know they don’t have a nefarious purpose? They even dress like villains!” </p><p>“What, you mean because their costumes are black?” Deadeye squints at Lee. “There’s no rule about what color your costume has to be. Maybe they mostly work at night.” </p><p>“The Avenger wears all black,” Gentle Fist points out.</p><p>Deadeye snorts into her coffee. “You mean Captain Duckbutt.”</p><p>It’s become something of a running joke, the various nicknames for The Avenger. They’re all given to the press in interviews by his teammate, Naruto. (Naruto is both his civilian name and his hero alter-ego. His rationale for flouting a secret identity, as he relayed it to Lee, was, “I’d like to see a villain try and come after me! I’ll kick his ass!” This loudmouthed bravado is more-or-less his brand, and has made him a darling of the media.) The Avenger’s nicknames are always derogatory—Lord Stick-in-the-Mud, The Mighty Douche, Captain Sniffs-His-Farts—and some of them are so vulgar that Lee wouldn’t even repeat them aloud. ‘Bastardman’ was a favorite of the blogs for a period of a few months, after a trending hashtag attached to a video of The Avenger storming out of an interview when his relationship with the villain Gouge was questioned. </p><p>“All I’m saying is,” Gentle Fist continues, ignoring Deadeye’s snickers, “you have no evidence that they’re up to anything. So far all I’ve seen them do is rescue people, stop criminals and … mildly inconvenience you in particular.” </p><p>Just then, the door to the breakroom slides open with an electronic beep and a hiss of hydraulics. </p><p>Mighty Guy comes wheeling into the room, scowling. </p><p>“Guy-sensei!” Lee yells. “There is a topic of the greatest importance that I need your opinion on!”</p><p>“Hold your horses, Lotus! I have a case for you!” Mighty Guy slams down a newspaper onto the breakroom table. “Help me figure out how this darned photographer, Sukea, keeps getting such excellent photos of me!”</p>
<hr/><p>The Green Beast rumbles to a gentle stop under Lee’s carport. Lee kills the engine, pulls his helmet off his head, shakes out his hair … and is immediately struck by the sound of <i>barking</i>.</p><p>He peers over the hedgerow. </p><p>Standing in Gaara’s tiny square of front yard is a stubby-legged brown dachshund with its snout in the air. It yips, and then, appearing to make direct eye contact with Lee, starts to howl. </p><p>He waves at it. </p><p>“I’m sorry about him,” says a soft, raspy voice. </p><p>Lee looks up to see Gaara standing on his front step with his arms crossed. His sleeves are pushed up above green gardening gloves. There’s a visible blotch of mud on the corner of the right lens of his glasses. </p><p>“I didn’t know you had a dog!” Lee chirps. </p><p>“I don’t.” Gaara sighs. Although Lee suspects he and Gaara are close in age, the sag in his shoulders speaks to a weariness far beyond his years. There are bags under his eyes you could pack a grocery trip in. “I’m dogsitting for my brother.” </p><p>“Oh!” The dachshund howls again as if in punctuation. “What’s the little guy’s name?” </p><p>Gaara inhales sharply through his nose and purses his lips. “Gaara.”</p><p>“But your name is—”</p><p>“Yes,” he says sharply. “I know. Kankuro thinks he’s the height of wit and humor.” </p><p>“Um.” Lee looks back and forth from the barking animal, who’s now jumped up to put his tiny front feet on the hedge so he can scream straight in Lee’s face, and his neighbor, with his closed-off expression and tidily-combed hair. “You do not seem to have much in common.” </p><p>Gaara’s barely-there lips thin further. “It’s because I’m short, and the dog is a miniature breed.” </p><p>Lee stifles a guffaw behind his hand. “That is terrible!” he squeaks.</p><p>“You’re laughing.” </p><p>“I don’t mean to!” </p><p>Lee dangles a hand over the hedge. The dachshund immediately lunges at him to sniff his fingers aggressively. He licks the back of Lee’s hand once, then bays in triumph. Lee goes up on his tiptoes and stretches downward to scratch between his ears.</p><p>“You can come over here and do that,” Gaara offers. His eyes widen slightly, as if surprised at his own words. “That is, if you’re not busy.” </p><p>Lee grins. “I would <i>never</i> turn down a chance to play with a sweet widdle puppy!” </p><p>He plants a hand on the top of the hedgerow and hops it in a single motion. Gaara just stands there, looking slightly shell-shocked. </p><p>“Oh,” he says, after a moment. “I didn’t mean … literally, <i>over</i>.” </p><p>A blush spreads over Lee’s face. “Oops! Sorry. Um … just habit, I guess.” </p><p>“You make a habit of jumping over your neighbor’s hedges?” Gaara calls over his shoulder, turning to open the house’s front door. </p><p>“Just yours, actually.” Lee follows Gaara (the neighbor) and Gaara (the dog) inside. </p><p>“Let’s go out back.” Gaara toes his shoes off in the doorway and takes them in hand. Lee copies his motions, though it takes him quite a bit longer to unbuckle and unzip his knee-high cycling boots. “Since you helped me unload all those pots, I thought you at least deserved to see the end result.” </p><p>The interior of Gaara’s little house is organized very neatly, everything at square angles and not a centimeter of space wasted. You would never know he just moved in; there isn’t a single cardboard box to be seen. All of his decor matches, in rich reds and subtle creams, utterly different from the hodgepodge of miscellanea that makes up Lee’s home. Their houses have the exact same floorplan, but they couldn’t look more different. </p><p>Where Lee’s living room has a kotatsu table hung with a plush turtle-print blanket, surrounded by haphazardly scattered throw pillows, Gaara has a low sectional sofa upholstered in thick red fabric. Where Lee has traditional tatami floors, Gaara has an intricately patterned, fringed rug. Where Lee has a spindly little coffee table to charge his laptop, Gaara has a television in a pristine white entertainment center that looks like it’s never so much as been turned on. And where Lee has racks of varicolored dumbbells and barbells, Gaara has shelves upon shelves of thick, serious-looking books, meticulously alphabetized and stacked floor-to-ceiling.</p><p>There are no photographs, no sign of a spouse or child. No sign that anyone else lives here at all. Lee thought he was the only single guy in the neighborhood—it’s not common even for well-off singles to live anywhere but an apartment—but apparently he was wrong.</p><p>Lee almost has to slap himself to keep himself moving, when all he wants to do is stare around and try to gain insight into Gaara’s life. Who is this curious, oddly charming man with a home that looks like it was peeled from the pages of an interior decoration magazine, and what is it that makes him tick?</p><p>Lee doesn’t have to wait long to find out. Gaara leads him through the kitchen—with its pristine knife rack and many bags of spiced teas, a single cup and plate sitting on the drying board—and out through the back door. </p><p>Stepping into the tiny back garden is like stepping out of a spaceship onto a whole other planet. Lee’s so distracted he almost forgets to jam his feet back into his boots, and completely neglects to buckle them back up. The whole space is overrun with the green of plantlife and the red of terracotta pots. The bags of soil seem to have multiplied in the time since Lee last saw them, because they’re now stacked five deep and waist-high all along the fence. Tall, spindly-armed cacti stretch above Gaara’s head, looking more like trees than succulents. Low-lying little shrubs cluster in tidy rows along the ground. Gaara’s spread out white stone gravel into a winding path, and along each of its branches, Lee finds some new delight to look at: here, fat little bulbs that look more like rocks than plants; here, delicate, curling fronds that sting his fingers when he stoops to touch them; here, sunny orange fruits haloing the head of a prickly pear. </p><p>“I’d rather you pet the dog,” Gaara says lowly, as Lee stoops to examine a cactus with spines so fine and dense they almost look like cotton fluff, “if it’s all the same to you.” </p><p>Lee stands quickly, shoving the bleeding tips of his fingers into the pocket of his leather jacket. “Of course! Sorry! It’s all just so impressive!” </p><p>Gaara’s gloved hands are fisted together in front of his body, fingers fidgeting. If Lee didn’t know better, he’d almost think he was blushing as he says, “Thank you.” </p><p>Lee finds a fuzzy ball that’s closer in size to a ping-pong ball than a tennis ball, and he tosses it up against the side of the house for the dachshund—which he is still having a hard time mentally referring to as <i>Gaara</i>—to chase, his skinny little rat tail working in a furious circle. </p><p>“That must have been a lot of hard work!” Lee says, over the dog’s yips and the scrabble of his claws in the loose gravel. “These are your pride and joy, huh?” </p><p>A little twitch works at the corner of Gaara’s mouth. It’s the closest Lee has seen to a shy smile on his face. “You could say that.” </p><p>“I <i>will</i> say that!” Lee snatches the ball from the dachshund’s slobbering mouth and tosses it up against the house again. The dog goes running, ears flapping like sails in the wind. “You have a lot to be proud of!” </p><p>Gaara doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, so instead he stays mum. A sleek brown body barrels between his legs, and he ducks down with a surprising quickness to grab the ball from the dog’s snout. He chucks the ball back to Lee—he must have been an athlete when he was in school, Lee thinks, even if he’s a bookworm now, because his aim is perfect—so that Lee can repeat the cycle. </p><p>They keep the game up for a good while, their actions punctuated with Gaara (the dog)’s howls. Lee carries most of the conversation, keeping to topics light and familiar: the weather, the news highlights, the local sports teams. He eschews, as he always does, the personal, and Gaara doesn’t seem to mind this in the least. </p><p>Then Lee’s comms beep. He lifts his wrist and pretends to check the time, muttering a <i>frick</i> under his breath. There’s a gas leak in the restaurant district, all heroes on deck. </p><p>“I’m terribly sorry!” he announces. “I just realized the time! I have to go!” </p><p>Gaara isn’t looking at him, he’s checking his phone, which is buzzing as though he just received a flurry of text messages. </p><p>“Yes,” he mumbles, distracted, “it’s getting late, isn’t it?” </p><p>Lee climbs right up over the fence and into his own yard. </p><p>Getting into costume, for Lee, fortunately does not take long. He wears the bulk of his suit under his civvies. When the call comes in, all he needs to do is slick back his hair, pull up his hood, and <i>voila!</i> He doesn’t bother with a mask, unlike most heroes, because the tight hood has the effect of covering most of his eyebrows. </p><p>It’s a trick that Mighty Guy taught him and the rest of their team: Villains pride themselves on being unable to unmask a hero. It’s the ultimate sign of humiliation and defeat. But a hero doesn’t need a mask to be anonymous. People tend to focus on the most obvious features of a person’s face and forget the rest. When Neji transforms into Gentle Fist, he slips in color contacts that turn the steely grey of his eyes to an everyman brown. Tenten wears her long hair down in her civilian life, so that anyone who met her on the street would never recognize her as Deadeye, with her distinctive twin buns. </p><p>Out of costume, Lee’s eyebrows more-or-less balance his face. But once the hood comes up, his eyes are his most distinctive feature. He’s seen more than one comment about his “bug eyes” and “spider lashes” on the superhero gossip forums. Enough of them, actually, that he tries not to frequent certain corners of the web anymore, no matter how much it stirs his heart to see people discussing his feats with an ecstatic breathlessness that carries even through text on a screen.</p><p>Deadeye shows him the highlights, anyway, because she has something of a social media addiction and a sick fascination with the trashiest rumors. </p><p>Lee parks The Green Beast in a covert alleyway when he arrives on the scene. His helmet and jacket go under a cardboard box. </p><p>When he sees Sirocco—because <i>of course</i> Sirocco is there, grabbing the crowd control barriers that Lee’s setting out right out of his hands and setting them up five times as fast as Lee could have done them on his own—the vigilante nods meaningfully at Lee’s feet. </p><p>Lee looks down, and his face burns. </p><p>He’s forgotten to trade his motorcycle boots for his costume shoes. </p><p>Sirocco sidles up beside him and taps Lee’s instep with the toe of one sandy appendage. Lee has never noticed it before today, but Sirocco’s costume isn’t actually pure black. There’s a dark red embroidered patch on the left side of his chest, a kanji. Lee has to squint to read it. </p><p><i>Love</i>. Hah, well that’s rich. Lee wonders if it’s meant to be ironic. </p><p>Sirocco gives him a sly little look, mirth wrinkling the corners of his black-rimmed eyes. </p><p>Lee doesn’t know what Sirocco has to be so smug about, he thinks as the vigilante skulks away, off to inconvenience yet another noble hero in the pursuit of justice, no doubt.</p><p>After all, he has wiry brown hairs all over the hem of his cape.</p>
<hr/>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Gaara the Dog (TM)(R) is the creation of ScarletCloack, original character, do not steal.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Ohh boy, it’s the Green Menace!” Creature Feature drawls, standing upright from his position leaning against the radiator. </p>
<p>They’re on the roof of the Selina Arts Museum offices, located at a strategic vantage point across the street from the museum proper. From here, there’s a bird’s eye view directly into the museum’s main hall, where an exhibit of the most famous works from the sumi-e master Yamanaka Sai is on display. There have been rumblings ever since the exhibit was announced that art thieves were planning to hit the museum and make off with the priceless works, so HQ has had a rotating guard of heroes standing watch every night since the exhibit rolled into town. </p>
<p>“That is not my name,” Lee says, though there’s no heat behind the familiar words. “I have been reformed under the great teachings of Mighty Guy, and you know very well my name now is The Lotus.” </p>
<p>Creature Feature just shrugs, one sharp canine flashing in the dark when he grins. </p>
<p>“Meh, can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” </p>
<p>He waves Lee off, and Lee nods a cordial farewell to him and his massive white wolf as they make their way down the fire escape and off the roof. </p>
<p>Lee stares out into the black night. This close to the city center, the ambient light burns away what few dim stars are visible on the Konoha skyline. Everything is inky black, uplit by splotches of neon from the all-night restaurants and the golden glow of street lamps. On the roofs of two other nearby buildings, Deadeye and Gentle Fist are likewise relieving Lioness and … oh, Lee can never remember the third member of Team 8’s name, but he knows it has something to do with insects. The Arthropod? The Entomologist? He knows it’s definitely not Bug Man; that’s just what Naruto calls him because he doesn't know the guy’s name either. </p>
<p>There’s a quick flash of light from the roof to the left of the museum, followed by the one to the right. Lee pulls out his pocket mirror and flashes the Ready signal back to his teammates, then folds his legs under him and perches on the top of the radiator, scanning the museum’s barred windows for any sign of a disturbance, every sense on high alert.</p>
<p>Behind his shoulder, there’s a <i>whoosh</i> of loose sediment like a dust devil gaining traction. </p>
<p>Lee snaps fist up to grab the hand reaching for him before it can touch his shoulder. </p>
<p>The hand dissolves to individual grains in his grasp, and reconstitutes itself, black-gloved, a few inches to the right. </p>
<p>Lee does not turn to look at Sirocco, even as he hears the vigilante take a seat beside him on the radiator. Excess black fabric flaps in the wind, partially obscuring Lee’s vision. </p>
<p>“You are disturbing me.” Lee barely parts his mouth to speak, expression tight. </p>
<p>Lee doesn’t expect a response, so he’s surprised when Sirocco clears his throat. </p>
<p>“You said you were reformed.” His voice is low and rough, like gravel rolling over itself on the bottom of a riverbed, not quite yet worn smooth by the current. There’s a little bit of an affectation to it, maybe, like it isn’t quite his real voice. If he’s aiming for a heroic chest-voice, he has a long way to go. Lee could give him a few pointers; after all, he learned from the best of them. “You used to be a villain, then?” </p>
<p>Lee’s face heats. “No!” he hisses. “Of course not!” </p>
<p>“Then why the need for reformation?” </p>
<p>Lee glances to the right. In the dark, Sirocco’s flat green pupils flash like a cat’s. Lee tries very hard not to read too much into the slight narrowing of his eyes. </p>
<p>“Well—” It’s Lee’s worst-kept, most embarrassing secret. Every hero in Konoha knows about his history. Then again, he reminds himself, Sirocco <i>isn’t</i> a hero. “I had a … dalliance with vigilantism in my youth.” He isn’t even sure why he’s telling the mysterious, black-clad figure this. Maybe some misguided sense of obligation, a need to steer the young man away from the path Lee himself once stumbled down. Either way, he can’t seem to stop the words from charging past his lips. “I thought, because I don’t have any powers, that I could never be a proper, registered hero.” </p>
<p>Lee looks down at his hands, flexes them in his lap. He’s wearing his bright green gloves, but he can feel the scars of his mistakes beneath them, the slight tightness in the skin across his knuckles. </p>
<p>“Of course, that was before I met my teammates. And my mentor.” </p>
<p>He looks back up. Sirocco is just watching him, seemingly passive, those animal eyes of his giving nothing away. Not for the first time, Lee wishes he could rip the dark cloth away from his face and see what he’s really thinking. Is he waiting for the conclusion of Lee’s rambling train of thought? Or is he just bored?</p>
<p>Lee supposes it doesn’t matter. Sirocco has never done anything Lee has asked him to before; he’s unlikely to start now. </p>
<p>“That’s why I know exactly how dangerous what you’re doing is!” Lee continues. “Do you remember a few years ago, when that subway tunnel collapsed?” </p>
<p>There’s a beat of predictable silence, just the flapping of fabric in the breeze and the hum of the traffic below. </p>
<p>Lee sighs. “I suppose if you’re not from around here, you wouldn’t. Well, I was in there. By myself, with no team and no backup. I thought I could handle it on my own. After all, I’d been collaring purse-snatchers and chasing down litterbugs for months. I thought it was my chance to prove my mettle as a real hero.” He clenches his fists in his lap. “I was wrong, obviously.”</p>
<p>Sirocco doesn’t invite him to go on. There’s no indication he’s even listening, beyond the weight of his stare heavy on Lee, but Lee’s on a roll now, spilling his guts like Sirocco’s ears are wooden plates at a shrine, and he can write his wishes onto them just by speaking.</p>
<p>“A piece of the tunnel fell on me before I could help even one civilian. It tore right through the crummy little suit I’d sewn myself and crushed my left arm and leg.” He chuckles bitterly. “I just ended up being another casualty for the <i>real</i> heroes to deal with.” </p>
<p>He stares off at the horizon. Gentle Fist’s mirror on the roof of the other building flashes the All-Clear, and Lee flashes his mirror back at him. </p>
<p>“They didn’t think I would be able to walk again, much less run or fight. When Mighty Guy came into my hospital room … to be honest, I thought I was going to be arrested.” </p>
<p>“But you weren’t,” Sirocco whispers. </p>
<p>“No.” Tears spring to Lee’s eyes at the memory. “He told me that if I could get back into fighting shape, he’d offer me a job. Well, that lit a fire under me like nothing before. And then I met Deadeye, and Gentle Fist, and I realized you don’t <i>need</i> superpowers to be a real hero. I only passed my registration test by the skin of my teeth, but …” He spreads his hands. “Here I am.” </p>
<p>“Here you are,” Sirocco murmurs. His low rasp kindles something in Lee’s stomach, a spark threatening to burst into flame. </p>
<p>“You should just apply for a license,” Lee says. “It’s safer that way. With powers like yours, you’d have no trouble passing the exam. They might even let you keep your current team. It seems like you all work well together.” </p>
<p>There’s a very long silence where Lee thinks Sirocco is about to brush him off entirely, but then he says, “<i>We</i> work well together.” </p>
<p>“Well, maybe!” Lee hiccups a giggle, though tension simmers beneath the surface of it, a rankling annoyance. “If you’d stop interfering with my work.” </p>
<p>Sirocco snorts and crosses his arms. It’s the first true human gesture Lee has seen from him. “If you’d stop putting yourself in harm’s way, I wouldn’t have to keep interfering” </p>
<p>“If you’d let me <i>work</i>, maybe you’d be able to see what I can really do!” </p>
<p>Sirocco’s eyes are flat as a still pond, but there’s a little flicker in them that Lee thinks might have been him actually <i>rolling his eyes</i>. It’s surprisingly charming. He dips his head, a gesture too quick for Lee to be convinced it’s agreement. </p>
<p>“We could spar sometime!” Lee suggests. As soon as he says it, his blood burns hot with the idea. Clashing with Sirocco’s tremendous force, just his bare fists and determination up against all that raw power. “Once you get your license. There’s a great training room at HQ. I’d love to flex my muscles against that ability of yours. What do you call it, anyway? Sand manipulation? Earth control?” </p>
<p>“Sand transformation,” Sirocco says quietly. “I’m not controlling the sand …” </p>
<p>“You <i>are</i> the sand,” Lee breathes, hardly believing it. “That’s incredible. I’ve never even <i>heard</i> of a power like that! Are you … are you even <i>human</i>?” </p>
<p>Sirocco gives a rough, derisive shrug. “Some would say not.” </p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Lee says quickly, hearing the undercurrent of hurt in those words, poorly masked as indifference. “I didn’t mean anything by it. People will say anything, but it doesn’t make it true. Some people say my team aren’t proper heroes, but at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what they say, only what you do!” Lee clenches a passionate fist in front of his heart. “That’s what Mighty Guy says! And he has the highest number of civilian rescues on record of any hero, powers or no.” </p>
<p>“You certainly talk about your mentor a lot,” Sirocco comments wryly, his tone underlain with something like amusement. </p>
<p>“He is like a father to me!” Lee says hotly, then quietens. “I could talk about my teammates instead, but they’ve been irritating me lately.” He turns to Sirocco and grins. “Do you know, they think you and I have ‘unresolved sexual tension’.” He snorts, shaking his head. “Whatever that’s supposed to mean.” </p>
<p>Sirocco’s silent for a moment. Those seaglass eyes trace Lee’s face. He leans in closer and cocks his head. “Do we?” </p>
<p>“Do we what?” </p>
<p>Sirocco doesn’t reply. He just pulls the scarves that cover his mouth and nose up over his chin, exposing thin lips and a sharp jawline that looks oddly familiar. </p>
<p>Lee doesn’t have any time to ponder that familiarity though, because the next thing he knows, Sirocco is kissing him. </p>
<p>He kisses like a fist fight. It’s more teeth than lips, Sirocco crushing his face against Lee’s. He kisses like he’s never been kissed before, like the only kind of touch he knows is violence, like gentleness is a foreign language. His body collides with Lee’s like a meteor, almost bowling them both over and off the radiator, saved only by the sturdiness of Lee’s well-trained abdominals. </p>
<p>Heat sings in Lee’s gut, raging like a forest fire. That dark voice inside him that he spends most of his time trying to crush down whispers <i>challenge</i>, and Lee rises to the occasion. He manhandles Sirocco’s thin body into his lap, gets his hands around his ribs, rakes his nails down the muscles straining through layers and layers of black silk and leather. He bites Sirocco’s lower lip so hard that he hisses, and Lee worries that it might have been too much until Sirocco returns the favor, hard enough to draw blood. </p>
<p>God, Lee hopes he drew blood. </p>
<p>Sirocco licks past Lee’s lips, his tongue questing into the corners of Lee’s mouth like he’s claiming ownership of it. His fingers dig into Lee’s shoulders like claws. He feels <i>wild</i>. </p>
<p>Lee wishes he could see that wildness, but when he chances a glance, all that fills his vision is reams of black fabric. </p>
<p>He pulls Sirocco flush against him, thrilled by the way his wiry muscles mold under Lee’s fingertips. Lee is strong; he could hold him in place like this with just one hand. He could rip that black cloth right off Sirocco’s face and finally figure out <i>what</i> exactly it is about him that’s so damn alluring. </p>
<p>But he doesn’t. </p>
<p>Sirocco pulls back with a gasp. Lee notices with a little thrill of triumph that there’s a smear of red in the corner of his lip. He’s staring at Lee’s mouth; his eyes widen. </p>
<p>Lee reaches for him, goes to reel him back in. </p>
<p>His fingers close around loose sand. Sirocco dissolves right between his fingers, whisked away by the wind. </p>
<p>Just as Lee gains his bearings and stands, wiping his bloodied mouth on his sleeve and preparing to give chase, the burglar alarm sounds from the museum across the street.</p><hr/>
<p>“So, what do you do for fun, besides gardening?” Lee asks, propped on his elbows to lean over the fence in his back garden. His own tiny parcel of yard feels embarrassingly inferior in comparison to Gaara’s lush paradise, just a plain square of neatly trimmed grass and a portable charcoal grill Lee bought on a whim, based on some half-formed aspiration of one day <i>cooking out</i>. </p>
<p>Gaara looks up from his potted cactus. He’s kneeling in the dirt, gardening gloves up to his elbows, his eyes shaded from the sun beating down overhead by a floppy straw hat. He wipes his dusty face with the back of one hand and only succeeds in dirtying it further. He shrugs.</p>
<p>“I … don’t get out much.” </p>
<p>“No!” Lee gasps, grinning. “But you seem like such a party animal!” </p>
<p>Gaara studies his face, not seeming to be able to tell if Lee’s joking. “I do?” </p>
<p>“Every party animal I know turns his lights out at 10 PM sharp, yep!” Lee really lays it on thick, waggling his eyebrows. “And listens to … is that Vivaldi?” He nods to the old boombox Gaara has pulled out onto his miniscule patio, which is piping out tinny classical music.</p>
<p>“Chopin,” Gaara corrects him. </p>
<p>“Only a hardcore rager would even be able to tell the difference!” </p>
<p>Gaara ducks his head, the brim of his hat flopping over his eyes. “If you’re just going to tease me …”</p>
<p>“No, no, I’m sorry.” Lee goes up on his tiptoes with his sincerest look, grabbing onto the tops of the fenceposts. His knuckles are badly bruised from taking down that art thief last week, a scab along the back of his right hand threatening to separate as he flexes his fingers. “All I meant was that since you’re new to the neighborhood, I could show you around. There’s an amazing little karaoke bar within walking distance! I don’t know if they have Chopin, but you’ve gotta know at least a couple of the karaoke classics, right?” </p>
<p>Gaara shifts his eyes behind his glasses, hesitant. They’re so bright and clear, seeming to soak up the color of the cactus he’s holding. </p>
<p><i>He’s gorgeous,</i> Lee thinks, not for the first time. How did he get so lucky as to end up with a looker like him for a next-door neighbor? </p>
<p>“I don’t know how I feel about karaoke,” Gaara says, long after Lee has completely abandoned the topic of discussion in favor of getting lost in his handsome neighbor’s eyes. “It sounds … loud.” </p>
<p>“Okay, so that’s a no on karaoke.” Lee taps his chin, miming being deep in thought. “What about a park? Pennyworth Park is really nice this time of year. I used to go jogging there when I lived in an apartment. It’s a little further out—we’d have to take The Green Beast—but it has some good spots to picnic. The flower gardens are beautiful, though I don’t think they have cacti … what do you say?” </p>
<p>“The Green Beast,” Gaara repeats. “That’s your motorcycle?” </p>
<p>Lee nods enthusiastically. “But don’t worry, she’s perfectly safe!” </p>
<p>“I’ve never ridden on a motorcycle before.” </p>
<p>“Ooh! I’ll get to pop your motorcycle cherry?” Then, realizing what he’s just said, Lee claps his hands over his mouth, blood rushing to his cheeks. “I didn’t mean—!”</p>
<p>“I know what you meant.” A little twitch works at the corner of Gaara’s mouth, that hint of a smile. His lower lip is cracked in the corner, dried blood visible beneath the healing white skin, like the dry summer air has chapped it. “It sounds nice.”</p>
<p>“Great!” Lee grips the fenceposts so hard in his enthusiasm that the wood creaks warningly, threatening to splinter. “How’s Saturday evening for you? Seven?” </p>
<p>The crooked little ghost of a smile on Gaara’s face widens ever-so-slightly. Gosh, Lee wants nothing more than to grab his face and kiss his chapped lip better. </p>
<p>“Saturday at seven. I’ll see you then.”</p><hr/>
<p>Saturday evening, Lee bounces on his toes on Gaara’s doorstep, adrenaline surging in him like he’s bracing for a fight. </p>
<p>He probably should have brought flowers, he thinks belatedly. That would have been the gentlemanly thing to do for a first date. </p>
<p>He pauses. <i>Is</i> this a date? He guesses he and Gaara never established one way or another. If it’s not a date, then the collared shirt is probably overdressed for just hanging out as neighbors, but if it <i>is</i> a date, then Lee now regrets not using his expensive cologne. His jacket still kind of smells like his locker at work. He peeks at his watch. Maybe he has enough time to hop the fence back home and…</p>
<p>The door opens. He hasn’t even <i>knocked</i> yet. </p>
<p>Gaara’s standing there in the open doorway, a curious expression on his face. His hair is even more neatly combed than usual, all the unruly flyaways flattened down. It makes Lee want nothing so much as to see what he looks like with his hair ruffled and his glasses askew. He’s wearing a cream-colored sweater vest and, much to Lee’s relief, a button-down shirt of his own, the sleeves rolled to his elbows. There isn’t a gardening glove in sight, which means his tightly muscled forearms are on display. </p>
<p>Lee refrains from tugging at his collar, which is suddenly damp with sweat. </p>
<p>“Sorry,” Gaara says. “I must have missed your knock.” </p>
<p>“You look very nice!” Lee blurts. </p>
<p>Gaara flushes pink across his cheeks and nose. “Thank you.” He digs his stocking feet into rug inside his front door. “You look nice, too.” He says it all in a single breath. “Let me just get my shoes.” </p>
<p>He’s back in a flash with his loafers in one hand and something green in the other. </p>
<p>“I know flowers are traditional for a first date, but—” </p>
<p>Lee’s internal celebratory cheers are so loud they almost drown out Gaara’s next words. <i>It’s a date!</i> Which means Lee is making a <i>terrible</i> first-date first-impression, which means … </p>
<p>“—I thought this would be more personal.” </p>
<p>Gaara reaches out and grabs Lee’s collar, and Lee nearly staggers with the suddenness of it. <i>Already?</i> Not that he isn’t up for it, he just didn’t expect Gaara to move so fast. His hands are quick and precise, and when he pulls back, Lee has to blink the whiplash from his eyes. </p>
<p>Pinned to the lapel of his jacket is a boutonniere. In the place of a flower is a green succulent with thick, radiating leaves. A sprig of little pink buds and a fan of greenery sprout up behind it. It smells like sap and the rooibos tea Gaara always has brewing in his kitchen. </p>
<p>“You made this?” Lee asks, faintly stunned. “From your garden?” </p>
<p>Gaara’s blush darkens. He shrugs. “Are you ready to go?” </p>
<p>“I meant to bring you flowers,” Lee tells him, as he leads him through his front gate and to The Green Beast waiting in his carport. “I just wasn’t sure if—”</p>
<p>“Don’t worry about it,” Gaara says. “They’d get crushed anyway, wouldn’t they?” </p>
<p>“Exactly!” Lee grabs the excuse. “That’s exactly what I was thinking!” He ducks under the carport to the shelf up against his house. He returns and holds out his guest helmet to Gaara. It’s a little clunkier than Lee’s sleek black number, round and bright red with a little brim in the front. The only other person who’s ever worn it is Tenten. Neji refuses to put it on, because he says it will ruin his hair, which means Lee doesn’t let him ride The Green Beast anymore. </p>
<p>“Sorry it’s not very fashionable,” Lee excuses, “but, safety first!” </p>
<p>Gaara seems unperturbed, putting the helmet on his head and carefully fastening the chin strap. </p>
<p>Lee’s heart stutters. He looks <i>adorable</i>. Lee just wants to eat him up.</p>
<p>That’s a dangerous thought.</p>
<p>Instead of interrogating his emotions further, he straddles The Green Beast and switches on the ignition, getting the engine idling. </p>
<p>“Hop on!” He gestures for Gaara to climb up behind him. </p>
<p>Gaara gives him a hesitant look, but he complies, scooting in until he’s snug against Lee’s back. His torso is surprisingly muscular for someone who dresses like a librarian. His hands are light on Lee’s ribs. </p>
<p>“Hold on tight!” Lee calls, finessing the clutch and rolling them slowly up their residential street.</p>
<p>“This isn’t as scary as I expected,” Gaara raises his voice to speak right into Lee’s ear, face pressed up against the back of his shoulder. </p>
<p>“Great!” Lee gives it a little throttle, counter-steering into the turn onto the main thoroughfare. “I’m gonna go a little faster!”</p>
<p>“Faster?” </p>
<p>Gaara’s gasp is lost to the wind as Lee guns it, shifting into high gear. His arms lock around Lee’s waist in a death grip. </p>
<p>It’s a beautiful summer evening, heat still simmering against the pavement as they cross through downtown and wind down the narrow streets to the other side of the city. The sun is just brushing the horizon as they take a sharply-angled turn, light in Lee’s eyes and warming his chest. He hopes Gaara’s enjoying himself, trying to decipher his mood through the minute fluctuations of his grip on Lee’s waist over the rumblings of The Green Beast’s engine. He seems to be relaxing, his forehead no longer pressed quite so hard to Lee’s shoulder. </p>
<p>Lee chances a look back at him at a stoplight. His face is flushed pink, green eyes wide behind his glasses. Lee smiles at him, and Gaara squeezes his waist a little in return. </p>
<p>There’s a hill in the middle of Pennyworth Park, with a maple tree at its apex, its branches low and shady. Any other evening, the patch of grass around its roots would be crowded with teenage couples and families catching a late dinner, but tonight the space is empty, as if the stars have aligned themselves just for Lee and Gaara’s date. </p>
<p>Lee parks The Beast at the base of the hill and drops the kickstand, turning to help Gaara off her back. Gaara takes his hand a little shakily, then pulls the helmet off his head and shakes his hair out. </p>
<p>Lee’s heart stops in his chest.</p>
<p>Gaara looks up at him, pink-cheeked and sweat-rumpled, his hair sticking out in every direction. His knees are trembling slightly, like he’s not quite used to being on solid ground again. The late summer sun turns his hair to burnished copper and paints his skin gold. His eyes are fever-bright. </p>
<p>“So,” he says, in the sudden quiet of the deadened engine. “You took my virginity.”</p>
<p>“<i>What?</i>” Lee breathes.</p>
<p>“My—” Gaara gestures to The Green Beast. “—motorcycle virginity? … You said something about popping my cherry before.”</p>
<p>Lee’s knees almost give out under him. “Right.” He forces a grin to cover up the way he wants to lick his lips. “What did you think?” </p>
<p>“It was loud,” Gaara says. “I’d do it again.” </p>
<p>Lee laughs. “Well that’s good, because it’s the only way we’re getting home!” He reaches in the saddle bag to pull out their dinner and a picnic blanket, and plants his free hand in the small of Gaara’s back to escort him up the hill. </p>
<p>Lee’s no slouch in the kitchen, but he has precious little time to cook with his hero-ing schedule, so he hopes that Gaara doesn’t mind premade convenience store food. He did take it out of the packaging and put it in his own tupperwares, so it’s at least arranged with some amount of visual appeal. </p>
<p>“I wasn’t sure what you’d like,” he says, gesturing to the spread, “so I got a little bit of everything.”</p>
<p>Gaara just nods, kneeling on the edge of the blanket. “Uh-huh.” He points to a package of sushi. “Is that saba?” </p>
<p>“Uh,” Lee peers through the clear plastic lid. “Probably?” </p>
<p>Gaara opens it, holding it to his face to sniff. “It is.” He looks up at Lee with a sly expression. “You didn’t make any of this, did you?” </p>
<p>“Well, no,” Lee rubs the back of his neck. “It’s been a very busy week. I <i>can</i> cook, though! Maybe you could come over sometime and I’ll make you something?” </p>
<p>Gaara pops a piece of the sushi in his mouth and chews. “Inviting someone over is really for the third date,” he says, swallowing. “So I guess I’ll have to come up with something for our second.” </p>
<p>Lee feels like his soul could just fly right out of his body. They’ve barely started their first date, and Gaara’s already planning a second and third? Oh, be still his beating heart. </p>
<p>They settle into an easy conversation after that, inching closer and closer together as they talk, their backs up against the rough bark of the tree. Gaara doesn’t eat much, but he seems impressed with the amount of food Lee manages to put away.</p>
<p>“Where do you keep it all?” he asks, eyeing the flat plane of Lee’s stomach.</p>
<p>“Ah-huh,” Lee chuckles nervously. “I … work out a lot.”</p>
<p>Gaara reaches out and squeezes one bicep. “Obviously.” </p>
<p>As the evening wears on, the sun giving way to muggy darkness, the birds relinquishing the airwaves to the crickets, Gaara lays down, resting his head in Lee’s lap. His hair is coarse, Lee discovers as he runs his fingers through it, rumpling it into further disarray. The moon rises slowly over the horizon, and the few twinkling stars that are visible in the city’s hazy skyline reflect in Gaara’s eyes. His eyes keep dropping from Lee’s own eyes to his lips. </p>
<p>It would be so easy to lean down and just <i>kiss</i> him. </p>
<p>Lee pushes a lock of hair behind Gaara’s ear, studying his pale, parted lips, that little spot of chapped skin that hasn’t quite yet healed. </p>
<p>He goes to lean down, but something stops him like a hand around his throat.</p>
<p>Gaara’s sparse eyebrows furrow. </p>
<p>Lee sits back up. He can’t let Gaara go on thinking that he’s some sort of … chivalrous gentleman. To kiss him right now would be as bad as lying to him. </p>
<p>Because Gaara probably thinks he’s the only one Lee’s kissing. </p>
<p>And Lee has this—this <i>thing</i> going on with Sirocco. Not that he <i>wants</i> to have a thing going on! This spate of unresolved sexual tension, or whatever his teammates want to call it, with a vigilante of all people, is unbecoming of a hero! </p>
<p>And Gaara … Gaara with his cacti and his sweater vests and his brother’s dog who’s named after him. Gaara, who’s starting to sit up, a question his lips, which are now starting to tip down into a tiny frown. Gaara is sweet, and soft-spoken, and most importantly <i>normal</i>. Lee probably needs a little bit of normal, he thinks. </p>
<p>(But Sirocco has power in his palms, whispers a sin-drenched, blood hot part of Lee’s mind. He has wiry muscles that nearly bore Lee to the ground. He can fight and survive and protect himself. He could watch Lee’s back just as Lee could watch his.)</p>
<p>Lee opens his mouth to say something, but just then, Gaara’s phone buzzes. </p>
<p>He sits up so suddenly he nearly barks his forehead against Lee’s, fumbling for his back pocket. </p>
<p>He studies the screen, then curses under his breath. “I need to go,” he says, cutting his eyes up to Lee before dropping back to the keyboard and typing a hasty message. “Can you drop me off at the corner of Al Ghul Avenue and Bat Wing Boulevard?” </p>
<p>“Of course!” Lee bundles all their trash into the picnic blanket with haste. “Is everything all right?” </p>
<p>Gaara won’t quite meet his eyes. “It’s a family emergency,” he lies poorly. “I’m sorry.”</p>
<p>“Don’t be!” </p>
<p>Lee is careful not to touch him as they descend the hill, hyper-aware of the tension between them and the worry line between Gaara’s brows. He’s aware, of course, from Tenten’s conversations with her female friends, about ‘safety texts’. Ways to politely excuse yourself from dates that are going badly without putting yourself at risk. Lee would never think to confront anyone over it, but it’s obvious exactly what this is.</p>
<p>Gaara’s body doesn’t press quite so closely to Lee’s as they make their way back into town in record time. </p>
<p>Lee idles to a stop at the corner, and Gaara hops off, passing him the red helmet. His disheveled hair looks more ‘harried accountant’ and less ‘rumpled sex kitten’ now. </p>
<p>“Thanks,” he says shortly. </p>
<p>He starts to walk away, and Lee thinks that must be it. He should have known better than to hope for <i>normal</i>. </p>
<p>But after two steps, Gaara turns on his heel and jogs back. He flips up the visor of Lee’s helmet and presses a quick kiss to the corner of Lee’s mouth. It’s just the softest, tenderest hint of a peck, barely even a brush of his soft lips. </p>
<p>He pats Lee’s blushing cheek in an almost brusque gesture and gives him a little smile.</p>
<p>“See you soon,” he whispers. </p>
<p>Then he turns and vanishes around a corner. </p>
<p>Lee’s comms beep. There’s a fight breaking out in the restaurant district. </p>
<p>Lucky for him, he’s barely a block away.</p>
<hr/>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Most of the time, Team Guy don’t even end up needing to fight anyone. On a good day, all they do is talk to people. That’s much easier, and it’s how Lee prefers it, even if a good fight <i>does</i> get the blood singing in his veins. </p>
<p>Gentle Fist is also a trained crisis counselor. Deadeye has a substance abuse certification. And as for Lee, well … he’s <i>been there</i>, so he’s able to be a voice in the darkness. Plus he’s just a good listener. </p>
<p>Heroes’ jobs wouldn’t be nearly so busy if all they had to deal with was ordinary people. Superhumans can handle basically anything your average person gets up to, and even non-powered, highly trained specialists like Team Guy can work their way through 90% of your average, day-to-day crises. </p>
<p>The problem, of course, is that with a society of superhumans, not everyone is going to use their powers for good. You have your superheroes, and then you have the obverse. Supervillains. And when you combine superpowers with the factors that normally lead to crime or crisis? A person with the power to control gravity, experiencing a manic episode that makes them think they’re a deity? Or someone so high on drugs they feel invincible, with a super-strength ability that <i>actually makes them invincible?</i> Well, it’s a recipe for disaster, to say the least. </p>
<p>So when a call goes out for a villain attack in the downtown area, Lee braces himself for the worst. </p>
<p>Whatever he expected to find, the reality is much more grim. </p>
<p>The poor guy isn’t a villain at all, he’s just completely disconnected from reality. Psychosis or just a bad drug trip or both, Lee really can’t be sure. What he does know is that the guy is ranting and raving about telepathy and spirits, and despite the fact that he’s soaked wet to the bone, he looks like he hasn’t showered or had a good shave in weeks. </p>
<p>And his power means nobody can even get close enough to help him. </p>
<p>The massive blasts of water he’s channeling from a burst water main have already overpowered Powerwash’s jets, blasting him off his feet and into a nearby building. Lightengale’s on her knees in the gutter with her head of pink hair bowed, trying to patch up his cracked ribs. Assisi’s birds keep getting sniped out of the sky with big globs of water like fat raindrops, and nobody who needs to go hands-on can get within a few meters without taking a faceful of water so hard it could dislocate your jaw. </p>
<p>Deadeye’s set up a net trap about half a block down, far enough away that the guy’s radius of attention doesn’t seem to have noticed her. Now Gentle Fist and Naruto are tag-teaming the man, Naruto on the roof of a nearby building with his hand cupped around his mouth, shouting down encouraging words and commands while Gentle Fist approaches from behind, speaking in a very soft, placating tone, hands raised and open, telegraphing that he’s no threat.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, neither strategy seems to be having much effect, since the man is ignoring them both, focused on drilling a hole through a nearby shop front with a spire of water that looks like a highly localized tornado. The glass cases inside the shop shatter, and Lee throws his arm up over his face to protect his eyes from the shrapnel. </p>
<p>That’s when Sirocco’s team arrives on the scene. </p>
<p>“What’s the situation?” Rashaba snaps her giant fan closed and folds it into the back of her cape. </p>
<p>Lee probably shouldn’t be sharing intel with vigilantes, but he really doesn’t have a choice. They need all the help they can get. He brings her and her teammates up to speed as quickly as he can.</p>
<p>“Why hasn’t anyone just taken him out yet? That girl on your team has a shitload of weapons. Water or no water, a quick—” Karagoz mimes throwing a projectile at the man’s head “—<i>shnk</i>, <i>grhhk</i>—” He mock-staggers, as if struck. “—would take him down, no problem.”</p>
<p>“He isn’t doing this on purpose,” Lee replies hotly. “All the civilians have already been evacuated. The only thing that’s in danger here is him and us and replaceable property. He’s not evil, he just needs help.”</p>
<p>Sirocco gives a sharp little nod and grabs Lee’s forearm with one small hand. When he got so close to Lee’s personal space, Lee isn’t sure. He’s trying very hard to focus on the situation in front of him and not make eye contact with Sirocco. When this is all over, they need to have a serious talk, because they can’t keep doing this. </p>
<p>“Rashaba, try to disperse some of the water’s power with air pressure. Karagoz, throw some trip wires between the buildings on this end of the street. Let’s see if we can’t slowly guide him up towards the net.” </p>
<p>“And you?” Lee cuts his eyes at Sirocco. </p>
<p>“This situation is … less than ideal for my ability.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, you’re not the only one!” Lee snaps.</p>
<p>“I’ll go up.” Sirocco gestures with his chin to the rooftops. “And try to provide some defensive cover. I’ll be more in the way here on the ground. Where will you be?” </p>
<p>“Lotus!” Lee looks up and sees Deadeye halfway down the block, waving her arms in semaphore. </p>
<p>Lee turns to Sirocco and gives him a smile, teeth catching the light and his hand extended in a thumbs-up. </p>
<p>“I’m going to be the decoy!” </p>
<p>He sprints down the sidewalk, his body nothing but a green blur of adrenaline. He ducks behind the man’s back, but he probably wouldn’t have been noticed either way. The man’s focused on blasting the cap off a fire hydrant, which will only saturate the street further … and give him more water to work with, if his power functions the way Lee thinks it does. </p>
<p>Lee claps the man on the shoulder as he zips by, shouting, “Look fast!” </p>
<p>The man turns, infuriated. His eyes are saccading rapidly, like he’s not quite seeing Lee, but rather seeing something beyond him, through him. </p>
<p>“The spirits tell me what you’re thinking!” he shouts. It can be hard, sometimes, to tell when someone’s belief that they have a special power is grounded in reality or part of their illness, but the fact that the man is moving water around with his hands means that he’s <i>probably</i> not also a telepath. “You’re trying to contaminate me! Well I won’t let you!” </p>
<p>“We’re here to help you!” Naruto shouts down from the rooftop. “But we need to get you somewhere safe so we can do that!”</p>
<p>The man ignores him utterly. Instead he raises one palm and diverts the water from the cracked hydrant straight at Lee like a bullet. </p>
<p>Lee dodges it easily, jogging backwards. </p>
<p>“You’re gonna have to come a little closer if you want to hit me!” </p>
<p>It’s not exactly therapeutic, and Gentle Fist will probably give him a whole lecture about taunting people when they get back to HQ, but it seems to be effective, because the man stumbles a couple steps forward, inching towards the trap at the end of the block. </p>
<p>“What this filthy city needs is a tsunami!” the man yells, raising his arms. Water rises up from the soaked pavement like a tide. “I will make it clean!” </p>
<p>He windmills his arms, and the water comes surging towards Lee. Lee braces himself, only for a gust of wind to whip up the street and blow the wave low, so that it merely surges around his ankles. The current is powerful still, but Lee stays standing. Over the man’s shoulder, Rashaba stands posed with her fan outstretched, and gives him a wink. </p>
<p>Lee takes a couple more steps back, the water fighting him the whole way, and the man closes the distance. Between the buildings behind him, Lee can see the glint of tripwires—Karagoz’s work. The man is quite boxed in now. Lee hops the catch of the net trap, still moving backwards, his eyes never leaving the man. The street is drier uphill, so the man is shorter of projectiles, but Lee still needs to be wary. He can’t let his guard down just yet. Just a few more steps... </p>
<p>The man thrusts a finger in Lee’s direction. The water soars through a hole in Deadeye’s net, straight towards his chest, dead-on like an arrow. </p>
<p>Lee dodges left.</p>
<p>At the very last second, the man points with his right arm, too, and a second water-arrow comes flying in from the other side. </p>
<p>Lee has nowhere to go. He throws his arms up in a cross-guard over his face and ducks. </p>
<p>There’s a sound like a great wave crashing down, only louder, more solid. Lee drops his guard to see a massive shield of sand—bigger than anything he’s ever seen Sirocco create before—thrown directly in front of his body. </p>
<p>Then several things happen all at once. </p>
<p>The man stumbles into the catch of the net, which cinches tight around his ankles and drops him to the ground. A gust of wind sweeps all the water downhill, out of the man’s range. Gentle Fist dodges in and, with a few quick jabs to the man’s joints, causes his arms and legs to fall limp. </p>
<p>And all the sand dissolves to the ground in a heap. </p>
<p>Lee looks around for his rescuer, heart in his throat, but Sirocco is nowhere to be found. On the edge of the nearest roof, Lee sees a dangling patch of black cloth. One black boot drops from an awning to the street with a wet <i>splat</i>. </p>
<p>And scattered all around the pavement … are clumps of wet sand. </p>
<p>
  <i>Sirocco.</i>
</p>
<p>Rashaba skids to a halt next to Lee. Her eyes are wide behind her veils. </p>
<p>“What do we do?” Lee whispers.</p>
<p>“I—” She falters. “I don’t know. I knew he was weak to water, but I’ve never—”</p>
<p>Behind them on the ground, the man is still screaming about a purifying wave, thrashing his body in his bounds. Deadeye stoops to throw him over her shoulder, then pauses. </p>
<p>“Is that … ?” </p>
<p>Lee can only nod and stare, the lump in his throat choking him. </p>
<p>“The Drake Hero Hospital is only about a block from here,” Red Death comments with seeming indifference, picking her way through the wreckage of the street to her injured teammate at the bottom of the hill. “If anyone’s able to help him, it’ll be them.” </p>
<p>“Right.” </p>
<p>Lee doesn’t know of any better way to start, so he just rips his cape right off the back of his suit and starts shoveling armfuls of wet sand into it. Rashaba helps the best she can, drying the grains with her wind and picking over the pavement for as much of the sediment as she can find. Karagoz is practically useless, just standing there, arms hanging like deadweight, expression unreadable behind his mask. When Lee looks at him imploringly, the only thing he does is make a clicking noise with his throat. </p>
<p>When Lee thinks they have the bulk of it, he bundles all the sand up into his cape and stands with it in his arms. He hopes they haven’t left behind any very important part of Sirocco’s body, and if they have, he hopes Sirocco has the control to summon it back to himself. </p>
<p>Lee turns to make a run for the hospital, and Rashaba steps forward like she’s going to come with him, but a hand lands on her shoulder. </p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Gentle Fist says in a quiet tone, “but I’m afraid we need your help. We’re struggling with the man with the water powers. Even with his arms out of commission, Lioness said she can see him pulling on the water pipes underground. We need someone who can keep him restrained and someone who can keep the water away from him while we get him to the hospital. Can you and Karagoz—?” </p>
<p>Rashaba looks frantically back and forth between the bound man bucking his body in Deadeye’s arms and the damp, painfully still bundle in Lee’s. </p>
<p>“But—” she starts. </p>
<p>“Please,” Gentle Fist insists. Over his shoulder, the man writhes in Deadeye’s grip, and she nearly drops him, cursing and shouting at him, “I know you’re scared, but I’m trying to help you!”</p>
<p>“I—” She sighs, dropping her head. “Fine.” But then she looks up, and she fixes Lee with a glare so hot it could turn sand to glass. “If <i>anything</i> happens to him, I’ll—”</p>
<p>“I’ve got him,” Lee assures her.</p>
<p>“Well, what are you waiting for?” She gestures him on, and Lee turns and runs. </p>
<p>When he first sprints through the sliding door of the hospital’s main entrance, the woman at the triage desk doesn’t seem to believe him. </p>
<p>“He’s right here!” Lee shakes the bundle of his cape urgently. “He can turn into sand, but then he got soaked with water, and I don’t think he can pull himself back together again!” </p>
<p>The woman at the triage desk raises both eyebrows, then picks up the phone on her desk and speaks into the receiver.</p>
<p><i>Paging Dr. Tsunade to the front desk. Dr. Tsunade to the front desk, paging.</i> The loudspeaker rings tinnily overhead. </p>
<p>Lee doesn’t have to wait long before a harried-looking woman with long, blonde hair and a fierce expression comes tearing around the corner with an orderly pushing a stretcher. It takes half a beat before Lee recognizes her as the doctor who did his surgery, all those years ago.</p>
<p>“How’s the leg, kid?” she barks, overplucked eyebrows drawn down. </p>
<p>“It’s fine—” Lee stammers. “But it’s not me, it’s him.” </p>
<p>He sets his cape down on the stretcher with a wet slap of fabric and launches into the most succinct explanation he can come up with.</p>
<p>Dr. Tsunade’s nose wrinkles. “Your relation to the … patient?” </p>
<p>“I’m his—” Lee has a lot of respect for medical professionals, especially since they saved his ability to walk, but he knows that if he tells the truth now, he’ll have no way of keeping an eye on Sirocco until his teammates arrive. “—his partner.” </p>
<p>He remembers Sirocco whispering to him on the rooftop, <i>We make a good team</i>, and he figures that it’s close enough to the truth that it’s only a lie by technicality. </p>
<p>“Right.” Dr. Tsunade claps her hands. “Show lover boy here to the waiting area,” she snaps to the triage nurse. Then she turns to the orderly and cracks her knuckles. “Prep me a hot room.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>It’s barely thirty tense minutes later when the door to the ward opens and Dr. Tsunade steps through, mopping sweat off her forehead with the back of her arm. </p>
<p>“Ready to see your boyfriend?” She jerks her chin in Lee’s direction.</p>
<p>Lee jumps to his feet. “Oh, he is not my—” </p>
<p>She gives him a curious look. He shuts his mouth with a snap. </p>
<p>“Yes please!” He has to jog to keep up with her long strides. “Is he all right?” </p>
<p>“See for yourself.” </p>
<p>She opens the door to one of the rooms. It’s swelteringly hot inside, the air so dry Lee feels his pores shrinking immediately. Over the bed is a contraption that looks like a heat lamp, making a sound like a hairdryer. </p>
<p>And lying on the bed beneath it, his face almost as pale as the hospital sheets … is <i>Gaara</i>. </p>
<p>Lee covers his mouth to hold in his gasp. His face is abraded and there’s a bruise blooming in one eye socket, but that red hair is unmistakable. </p>
<p>Lee takes a few shaky steps forward. Someone’s cut the front of his black costume open with rescue shears, and there are white patches attached to wires on the thin muscles of his chest, hooked up to a steadily beeping machine. He’s missing a shoe, and his hair looks unevenly short on one side, as if it were roughly buzzed with clippers, but his chest is rising and falling rhythmically.</p>
<p>“I didn’t think he looked that bad,” Dr. Tsunade comments wryly from the door. </p>
<p>“No, I’m sorry, I just—” Lee’s hand can’t help but reach for him, fingers trembling. </p>
<p>“Far as I can tell, he’s all in one piece,” Dr. Tsunade drawls, studying the clipboard at the end of his bed. “You were very thorough. Thought it was gonna be more of a Humpty Dumpty job, but as soon as we got him dried out, he came back together on his own. Pretty convenient power he’s got there. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She gives Lee an appraising look. “Buzz me when he wakes up, I have a couple research studies that could use a subject like him.” </p>
<p>“He’s very private,” Lee says. “I don’t know that he’d—”</p>
<p>“I can be very persuasive.” The doctor winks. “Didn’t see a hero license on him when we were looking for ID. You don’t happen to have a copy of it, do you?” </p>
<p>Lee has heard those exact words before, in that exact tone. He crosses his arms over his chest, defensive. “I’m afraid I don’t.”</p>
<p>“Ah, well.” She shrugs. “Like I said, buzz me. I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone to catch up.” </p>
<p>Lee drops into the lone chair next to the bed. His mind is racing in a million different directions, trying to slot Gaara into Sirocco’s place, like a film laid over its negative, just slightly out-of-sync. He remembers the precision with which Gaara tossed the tennis ball, the split in the corner of his lip when he smiled, the way he whispered to Lee, <i>See you soon,</i> at the end of their date, right before The Lotus and Sirocco both showed up at the same barroom brawl. And at the same time he’s remembering the warm mirth in Sirocco’s seaglass green eyes, the shy touches that belied his impressive strength, the way their single, stilted conversation on the roof probed for connection. He must have known that Lee and The Lotus were the same person. So why didn’t he ever <i>say</i> anything? Why did he let Lee go on, thinking he was chasing two different people entirely, being dishonest to Gaara about … himself?</p>
<p>He wishes he could wake him and ask him, but those green eyes are shut tight, kohl smeared across his eyes like a wash of ink in one of Yamanaka Sai’s sumi-e paintings. </p>
<p>The door slams open, bouncing off the near wall. All the equipment in the room clatters, the wheeled table by Gaara’s bedside jumping with the same startlement that Lee feels. </p>
<p>Standing in the doorway are Rashaba and Karagoz—or rather, Temari and Kankuro, Gaara’s siblings—now sloppily dressed in their civvies with their hair still damp, wearing matching expressions of horror and grim resignation. </p>
<p>“So,” Kankuro drawls. “It all comes out.”</p>
<p>Lee stands to make room for them by the bed, edging around them to the door.  </p>
<p>“How is he?” Temari approaches the bed cautiously, one hand outstretched. </p>
<p>“The doctor said he’s fine. He’s just resting right now. Um, she said to buzz her when he wakes up.” Lee’s fingers clench nervously on the door handle behind him, planning his escape from the room. He drops his voice to a whisper. “I think she knows that he’s … unregistered. You should be careful.”</p>
<p>Temari’s eyes snap up to him. “We’ll take care of it. Where are you going?”</p>
<p>“I was going to go back to HQ for debriefing,” Lee stammers. “I thought you might want some privacy.” </p>
<p>“Stay,” she says shortly. “Obviously he’d want you here, since he risked his neck to save you. Kankuro, get us some more chairs.”</p>
<p>Kankuro leaves the room grumbling, but there’s a relieved slump to his shoulders. </p>
<p>Temari sits back in the chair, her legs crossed primly at the ankle. Lee crosses the room again with trepidation. </p>
<p>“So.” She looks Lee up and down, eyes narrowed in suspicion. “The nurse told us you said he was your <i>partner</i>.” </p>
<p>Lee raises his hands. “I did not mean anything improprietous by it! It was just that he said we worked well together, and I needed an excuse to stay with him until you got here.”</p>
<p>She cocks an eyebrow. “Uh-huh. And it had nothing to do with whatever you two were getting up to on the roof the night of the art museum robbery?”</p>
<p>Heat crawls up the back of Lee’s neck. “He told you about that?”</p>
<p>“I’m his big sister. I know everything he gets up to.” She snorts, shaking her head. “Besides, that split lip was impossible to miss. I think he scared himself a little. It’s been a while since he let loose like that.” </p>
<p>Lee is saved from asking her what she means by <i>that</i> by Kankuro returning to the room with a chair under each arm. Lee hurries to help him set them up, Temari’s and Kankuro’s chairs on one side of the bed and Lee’s on the other. </p>
<p>For a while, they all just sit there in silence, watching Gaara’s chest rise and fall, listening to the steady beeping of his heart monitor. </p>
<p>“Did Gaara ever tell you why we left Suna?” Kankuro asks suddenly, voice gruff.</p>
<p>“Um, well, no.” Lee fidgets. “He didn’t really talk much about his past.” </p>
<p>“I thought you guys were like … having midnight make-out sessions on rooftops or whatever.”</p>
<p>A blush rises to Lee’s cheeks. “That does not mean we were talking.” </p>
<p>“Gross!” Kankuro makes a faintly disgusted expression, eyes clenched shut and his tongue sticking out. “Never mind, forget I asked.” </p>
<p>There’s a beat of dead air, dominated by the buzz of the heat-lamp. Kankuro drops the theatrics, his face suddenly sober. “We used to be villains.” </p>
<p>Lee gasps. “The costumes!” He’s halfway tempted to get his phone out right now and text his teammates an <i>I told you so</i>. </p>
<p>Kankuro throws his hands up in a shrug. “Listen, man, good costume leather is expensive.” </p>
<p>“Our childhoods were … difficult.” Temari grabs her brother’s hands in a firm but gentle grasp and forces them back to the arms of the chair. “I know what you’re probably thinking. ‘Who didn’t have it rough growing up?’”</p>
<p>Lee has to admit, that is exactly the thought that sprung to his mind, thinking back to the long, lonely halls of the wards of the Bruce Wayne Orphanage and how the doors to the outside world seemed to open up onto a burning need to prove himself. </p>
<p>“It’s not an excuse,” Temari continues, and Lee nods along, “but Gaara had it the worst of any of us. So the whole … supervillain thing, I guess that was his way of working through his shit. And the two of us …” She sighs, looking down at her hand clutching Kankuro’s. “... It seemed like the only way to bond with him. Like we were really a family again.”</p>
<p>“We never did anything <i>that</i> bad,” Kankuro interjects. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was definitely illegal, but it’s not like we were running around killing people. We didn’t even make the papers.” </p>
<p>“Ah,” Lee stammers, thinking of the newspaper article saved to his desktop at work, the grainy image of those black-and-white figures. “I think you might have. At least once.”</p>
<p>“Yeah?” Kankuro smirks. “Hope they got my good side.” </p>
<p>Temari thins her lips. “I think all of it—smashing windows, petty theft, running from heroes—it seemed to help Gaara get out of his mind and into his body. But then … something really bad happened. It was right after our dad died—”</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” Lee breathes.</p>
<p>“Don’t be, he was an ass,” Kankuro spits. </p>
<p>“Gaara never told us what happened, exactly.” Temari’s voice has dropped low, and she searches her brother’s unconscious face as if it holds the answers. “It was all very hush-hush. Hero coverage back home isn’t really a <i>thing</i> like it is here. There’s no blogs, hardly any paparazzi … so we couldn’t get any details aside from what Gaara was willing to give away. All I know is that a Konohan hero was involved, and that he got badly hurt. ”</p>
<p>The breath sticks in Lee’s throat. His best friend is a hero-gossip obsessive, and Lee knows of exactly one hero who traveled out of Konoha and sustained a career-ending injury. And his number is saved in Lee’s phone under the contact name <i>Papa</i>. </p>
<p>Suddenly Sirocco’s—<i>Gaara’s</i>—fixation on showing up to all of Team Guy’s scenes makes perfect sense. Lee’s blood runs cold. His knuckles go white where his fingers clasp his knees. He can’t even <i>look</i> at them, he’s so suddenly, incandescently angry. He’s never known who was responsible for stealing his mentor’s dream from him, but now—</p>
<p>Then Gaara makes a faint, muzzy sound. His head lolls on his pillows. His expression is soft, his lips barely parted. Vulnerable and all-too-human. </p>
<p>Lee remembers Mighty Guy squeezing his shoulder, the day he wheeled back into HQ with his official declaration of retirement. “Regrets and grudges only chain you to the past,” he’d said. “The only way to move is forward.” And the former hero has certainly embodied his own teachings in the years since, slotting into his new position as a hero recruiter and examiner like a hand into a glove. Lee thinks of his teacher laughing in the breakroom at HQ with The Scarecrow, drinking coffee out of a mug with a pug’s wrinkled face on it, clapping the other hero so hard on the back from the vantage of his wheelchair that he staggered. Guy-sensei’s dream may have <i>changed</i>, but it’s certainly far from stolen. </p>
<p>Lee takes a deep, steadying breath. </p>
<p>“You okay?” Kankuro asks.</p>
<p>“I am fine,” Lee says. It’s not a lie. “Please, continue.” </p>
<p>“Well,” Temari sighs again, like the story is too much burden to tell all at once, “whatever happened out there, it changed him. He started going to therapy, opening up to us more, wanting to do things together that weren’t quite so … anti-social. And then he started talking about moving here, about making amends, turning over a new leaf. This whole heroism thing?” She waves a hand as if to encompass the whole room. “It’s Gaara’s idea of penance.” </p>
<p>Lee nods slowly. It makes perfect sense, really. He just hopes that penance isn’t <i>all</i> it is. He rests a hand on the edge of the bed, studying Gaara’s sleeping face. That kiss on the roof, that motorcycle ride … that didn’t feel penitent, it felt genuine. </p>
<p>“So, what will you do now?” Lee whispers. He doesn’t look up to meet Gaara’s siblings’ eyes. “The doctors know about him now, and if you’re related, that means they probably know about you guys, too. I mean, are you … wanted? Do you have warrants out? We have an extradition agreement with Suna. This could be really bad for the three of you.”</p>
<p>Kankuro snorts. “Warrants? Us? You think we ever got <i>caught?</i>”</p>
<p>“Our dad was really well-off,” Temari says quietly, “and that kind of wealth can be insulating. Even if someone in the Sunan police force suspected us, nothing would have happened.” </p>
<p>“So why not just register as proper heroes?” Lee asks. “Why take all this risk?” </p>
<p>There’s a rustle of the bedsheets below. A warm hand finds Lee’s on the mattress, fingers winding weakly through his. </p>
<p>“Hero registration as a foreign national is time-consuming,” Gaara says. His voice is so gravelly with effort that it sounds more like Sirocco’s harsh rasp than his natural speaking voice. HIs green eyes are hazy and barely slitted open. “I didn’t want to wait when there was important work to be done.” </p>
<p>Lee frowns down at him. “You could have gotten terribly hurt.”</p>
<p>Gaara closes his eyes with something like exasperation. “So could you. It’s not the license that protects you, it’s the people backing you up. And I have excellent back-up.” </p>
<p>He squeezes Lee’s hand, and Lee can’t help but squeeze his back. He feels whole and warm and alive. </p>
<p>“Besides,” Gaara says. He turns his head to look at his siblings with a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “I’m sorry for not mentioning it to you earlier, but I already filled out the paperwork. We’re taking the hero licensing exam in September.” </p>
<p>Kankuro groans. Temari just shakes her head. </p>
<p>Lee ducks under the heat lamp and kisses Gaara square on the mouth. His mouth is soft beneath Lee’s, his lips parting with a surprised little gasp. </p>
<p>Somewhere in the background, Kankuro is making a gagging noise. Lee barely registers it. </p>
<p>Gaara’s hand climbs Lee’s wrist to his elbow, knocking him off balance so he can tug him closer. There’s a hint of teeth behind the softness of his lips and the gentleness of his tongue, a threat of a battle to come. </p>
<p>When Dr. Tsunade kicks the door open, Lee jumps back so fast that he singes his bowl cut on the heat lamp’s grate. </p>
<p>The burnt hair smells terrible, but Lee doesn’t care at all. Even as Dr. Tsunade storms the room like a general on the warpath, launching into a lecture about the risks of vigilantism that somehow ropes Lee <i>and</i> his mentor into it, Lee can’t look away from the green of Gaara’s eyes. </p>
<p>He can’t believe how lucky he is. And in the back of his mind—since it seems their ‘official’ first date was actually their second—he’s already planning the menu for their third date.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><b>Hero Names &amp; Identities</b> (may contain spoilers)</p>
<p>Lee - The Lotus<br/>Neji - The Gentle Fist<br/>Tenten - Deadeye (an expert marksman)</p>
<p>Gaara - Sirocco (A wind that blows from North Africa to the Mediterranean, causing sandstorms. While passing over the Mediterranean Sea, the sirocco picks up moisture; this results in rainfall in the southern part of Italy, known locally as "blood rain" due to the red sand mixed with the falling rain.)<br/>Temari - Rashaba (lit. “black wind", a strong wind in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, particularly in Sulaimaniya)<br/>Kankuro - Karagoz (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dlk0eIqxwq0">Turkish Shadow Puppet Theater</a>) </p>
<p>Suigetsu - Powerwash<br/>Juugo - Assisi (as in St. Francis of Assisi, a saint known for his special relationship with the animal kingdom)<br/>Karin - The Red Death</p>
<p>Gai - Mighty Guy<br/>Kakashi - The Scarecrow</p>
<p>Naruto - Naruto<br/>Sasuke - The Avenger<br/>Sakura - Lightengale (a reference to Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, and to the healing light that Sakura can emit from her hands)</p>
<p>Kiba - Creature Feature<br/>Hinata - Lioness<br/>Shino - Lee can't remember his hero name, but it's Captain Coleoptera (Coleoptera is the scientific name for the order of beetles)</p>
<p>Ino - Psyren (psychic + siren, the creatures of Greek myth that lured men to their deaths with their songs)<br/>(Chouji and Shikamaru don't appear in the story, but their hero names would have been Flutterball (as in butterfly + butterball) and The Professor)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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